MLB.com Streams Live Baseball Games to the iPhone

Update 10:39 a.m., June 17: The first game streamed by MLB.com will be Thursday’s 2:20 p.m. game between the Cubs and White Sox. An earlier version stated the first game would be on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Apple upgrades the iPhone with the 3.0 version of its operating system. The new era could literally begin with a home run.

The MLB.com’s At Bat application.

MLB.com, which sells the popular At Bat application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, said it will add live feeds of some games for no additional charge, at least for now.

Owners of the $9.99 application will at first get to see two games each day, chosen by MLB.com. (The games are subject to local blackout restrictions—and your iPhone, remember, knows where you are.) Thursday’s 2:20 p.m. game between the Cubs and White Sox will be the first to be streamed live on the At Bat application; the Tigers-Cardinals game at 8:15 p.m. will follow.

MLB.com says it plans to roll out the entire slate of games as the season progresses. Presumably it will make users pay to watch some games, using the new ability of iPhone developers to charge users for content within applications. The company says it has not yet settled on a price.

The video will play regardless of whether an iPhone is connected to a WiFi network or a 3G network. MLB.com says its servers will detect the strength of the phone’s connection and adapt the quality of the video accordingly. (It should be interesting to see the quality of the video over AT&T’s sometime spotty network.) The application also has DVR features, so users can pause and rewind live games from their device.

The implications of MLB’s move are significant. Live television on mobile devices has been slow to take hold in the United States, as channel aggregators like MobiTV tried to recreate the cable model in the wireless ecosystem. Content owners themselves, using mobile applications to offer their video a la carte to the people who are willing to pay for it, could get much more traction.

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MLB Advanced Media has always been ahead of the game whether streaming live games for almost a decade, or revamping their websites, or jumping right into the mobile market.

They deserve all the praise people give them. They’re the real deal.

I’m curious who the target audience is for this. While I’m a baseball fan and an iPhone owner, I can’t imagine spending 3+ hours watching a game on an iPhone.

I am, however, a subscriber to and a big fan of the MLB.TV Premium package which allows me to watch just about any game whenever and wherever I want, either on my laptop or (with the laptop connected to an HDTV) on a large screen TV. This is far more rewarding (and much less solitary) than I would imagine the iPhone experience to be.

In a rare case of added value, MLB is finally showing some smarts. This move will increase migration to use of their software package, build customer loyalty, and eventually build a reliable revenue base as users renew their subscriptions annually. Other sports leagues and content providers will undoubtedly watch closely as this develops. I’m sure the sports networks are eyeing this nervously as well. How about a free YES Network app with 99 cent game feeds on demand?

That’s kind of sick, if it works. And I thought baseball was for old people.

iPhones already get the live radio feeds via MLB At Bat, which I kind of prefer anyway.

Just curious why AT&T allows this over 3G and not slingPlayer doing exactly the same thing. (They could have required that SlingMedia reduce bandwidth.)

Sounds great, except for “The games are subject to local blackout restrictions” — unless you happen to be traveling domestically, without being able to see your local team, what’s the point? Many people, me included are only interested in their home team’s games.

And what is the point of these restrictions — do they really think people will go — “hey honey look, I can watch the baseball game on my iPhone instead of that huge HDTV we bought recently”?

On AT&T’s network? System outages in 5…4…3…2…

i think this is just another great addition to the MLB.com media that is already available. I’m a yearly MLBTV premium subscriber already, so I will only be using the service on my iPhone when traveling, so I’ m nervous to see the quality when switching from 3g to edge all over the country..

Now, hopefully all the other professional sports can follow.. I would LOVE the NFL NETWORK to do implement something similar in an iphone package!!

Yep, that’s what I want to do – squint to see the details of a baseball game on that huge display. Oh, yeah, and I’ll want to pay to do it, too. Remember the TV series Home Improvement? … “I don’t think so, Tim.”

Now if we can get the NHL to do this….

I was VERY excited when I heard this- then I learned of the stupid “blackout restrictions.” I don’t really care to watch an out of market game. I want to watch MY team. Just because its on TV doesn’t mean I can get to a TV. I don’t understand the concern. If it includes commercials, who loses?

This is a great addition to the MLB app. I’m generally tuning into Cubs games on my TV at home, but have already found the ability to listen to a radio broadcast on my phone while at work or travelling is great. My only suggestion would be to NOT add a game-by-game cost to the app, but perhaps different price levels of the app depending on the features you wanted. $5 just for a scoreboard, the current $9.99 for adding radio, and maybe $15 for video coverage.

Still, looking forward to having games at my fingertips no matter where I am.

#7 – I couldn’t agree more. They do themselves more harm than good w/ the blackout restrictions. It makes this “innovation” useless to the vast majority of potential users.

I love the At Bat application. Currently, they stream condensed versions of games (just the outs, big hits, great plays) that last 8-12 minutes. It’s perfect if you want to follow a team but do not want to waste three and a half hours watching every pitch.

I’ll second that on the black out restrictions. These might make sense in some very limited circumstances, but not often. I live 120 miles from NYC, but Yankee games on ESPN are routinely blacked out. Like I’m going to hop in the car and drive hours to see the game live when I realize its blacked out. Very short sighted. With that said, I have this app, and it is very good and I do like it.

Great, just what we need. MLB.com is already stretched too thin to provide a quality product or reliable service. Their radio service is acceptable at best. Their current mlb.tv is problem plagued and their customer service makes Russian Bureaucrats seem like Nordstrom personal assistants.

I certainly hope they’ve improved upon their ability to determine location. I was routinely denied access to games even while traveling in Europe.

The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, not in the selling. Unfortunately MLB.com products tend to taste like gym socks.

This is gonna be huge! Of course, it would be nice for current MLB.TV subscribers to get free streaming for all games.

How will they blackout the games in your region if you’re using an iPod Touch? IP address? I see how they can do it on the iPhone but the touch?

I agree with Joel (6). It seems very unfair to pick and choose what video I get to watch on my iPhone. One of the major things keeping me from buying an iPhone is the disabling of 3G Slingplayer (as well as tethering and MMS as other markets get. What are we, a 3rd world country?)

Matthew (12) and others, I think there will be other ways to get games. I believe that MLB gave the Yankees (and YES) permission to stream their games (as they will eventually let all the teams). Blackouts might be less of an issue. Here’s the link:

//www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/sports/baseball/07mlbtv.html

Still, I don’t believe all of these specialty programs that show various TV shows and events will give way to either a couple of aggregator sites like Hulu and/or full Slingplayer capability, which makes much more sense. One $150 or so investment and you’re done.

To the people complaining about blackout restrictions and saying you want to watch your team. Not everyone lives in their home team’s market, people grow up places and then move to different places and still support the team they grew up with. That is not uncommon at all. This is going to be an awesome feature. I don’t think I’d ever watch an entire game but if a game is close or its late in the game I’d love to connect live instead of having to listen to the radio broadcast or wait for highlights after its over.

This is ONE MORE REASON to leave AT&T.

I am not an iPhone user, though I use many other Apple products.

AT&T and Apple are rapidly wh0r1ng themselves out to the lowest-common-denominator sort of users, and this will alienate people whose time is actually worth something.

Finally : watching baseball on an iPhone ? This is the sort of thing only a fool would embrace. Of course, this IS the USA, and so there is a huge supply of fools ( after all, Sarah Palin has her following, doesn’t she ? ).

Streaming to the iPhone isn’t for people who want to watch the WHOLE game on the iPhone. It’s for people who want to catch the game while they are on their way home or the bar or whatever…

MLB need to make the At Bat app available for the Palm Pre ASAP.
I’d buy it in a heart beat and pay $20 for it.

#22, I agreed up until the Palin dig. Its old, get over it. And, #20 – no were arent YET a 3rd world nation. Not until Obama gets done with us.

AT*T will probably lose more customers than they will gain with their half-baked iPhone 3Gs upgrade policy. Leave it to corporate CEO buffoons to truly think like Einsteins.